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ETL commences IPO road show in provinces
The Lao Stock Exchange (LSX) will close (Wednesday and Thursday) October 12 and 13.
The LSX, along with banks, was closed yesterday for the Bank of the Lao PDR Foundation Day holiday. Next week will only be a three day trading week due to the closes on October 12 and 13, along with Setthathirath and Fa Ngum roads for what is looking to be Vientiane's biggest yet boat racing festival, providing the weather is kind.
On Monday, albeit a short week, the exchange opens in its new format with six half-hour settlement closing sessions between 8:30 and 11:30am. Volumes trading next week is also is expected replicate this week's low volumes but there could be a bit of a rally in the stocks in two weeks time.
Last week the IPO road show for ETL Public Co got underway with BCEL-KT stock brokers when they conducted events in Khammuan, Savannakhet, Champassak and Luang Prabang. The EDL right offering was also combined with the IPO. The ETL show case however is not as yet featured on the LSX website. Next Saturday, between 8:30am and midday, the road show comes to Vientiane at the Don Chan Palace hotel.
• So far this year there have been 186 trading days turning over (on today's exchange rate of 8,005 kip per US$) about 34.93 million shares for US$33.7 or a bit over 188,000 shares a day for US$180,100 per day.
• Last week the daily LSX Index noted share volumes dropped 70 percent compared to the previous week - from 150,000 per day to just 44,600 stock per day. Turnover at the LSX also fell as daily revenue fell from US$101,000 per day to US$29,500 per day.
• BCEL has turned over 9.67 million shares since it listed on Jan 11 at an average of 52,000 stocks per day.
This week the daily volumes fell away 80 percent from the previous week from 53,000 to 13,000 shares respectively.
• EDL-Gen accounted for 25.18 million shares since Jan 11, an average of 135,000 stocks per day last week. This week the daily volumes fell 58 percent compared to the previous week, from 75,000 shares to just 31,000 - that's 67 percent down on the year-to-date daily average.
Bank of England announced fresh stimulus measures and investors are hopeful that eurozone policymakers will act to recapitalise banks. European stocks lapped up the news and were expected to open higher on Friday after they hit their highest close in five weeks on Thursday.
The share market rally continued around Asian exchanges on Friday, with local stocks gaining for the third session in a row. Investor optimism was boosted by strong gains in the US and Europe yesterday. Overnight, the French, German and British markets were the standouts, with all three rising by more than 3 pct while shares in the US rose 1.6 pct.
The British central bank is reviving its asset purchase programme and is expected to print an additional 75 billion pounds of funds to buy government bonds back from the banks. This in effect leaves the banks with more cash to lend out to both British businesses and consumers.
The European Central Bank has left its policy rate at 1.5pct but has reinstated stimulus measures, indicating it will offer banks two new injections of 1-year funding and offered to buy 40 billion euros of “covered bonds”.
Base metal prices posted strong gains on Thursday after buyers were dragged from the sidelines in response to stimulus measures by central banks. Copper rose 6pct, tin rose 4.9pct and other metals rose 1.3 to 3pct. The Australian dollar recovered some ground to finish the day's trade at US97.93c after hitting 93 cents earlier in the week.
Global crude oil prices rose strongly for a second day in response to monetary policy stimulus in Europe and encouraging economic data in the US. Nymex crude oil rose 3.7pct to US$82.59 a barrel and London Brent crude rose to US$105.73 a barrel.
Gold prices rose in line with other commodities with the Comex December gold price up by US$11.60 an ounce or 0.7pct to US$1,653.20.
Despite the significant falls in the market on both Monday and Tuesday, Australian shares have gained by 3.3 pct so far this week. The Australian dollar was trading yesterday at its highest level for the week at US97.6 cents.
• Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index advanced 2.9 percent.
• Japan's Nikkei 225 (NKY) Stock Average gained 1.1 percent, extending a 1.7 percent advance on Thursday.
• South Korea's Kospi Index added 2.9 percent.
• Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 2.5 percent, on track for its biggest weekly gain in a year.
vientiane times
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